I don’t usually do guest interviews on the podcast, but I decided to bring Laura Brandenburg onto the show this week because she brings so much to the table that can be really valuable for you, whether you are hoping to become a Business Analyst, change jobs, or grow in your current career.
Laura Brandenburg is the Founder and CEO of online training and certification company Bridging the Gap. She helps people break into the Business Analyst profession or develop their skills to succeed in a Business Analyst career. Laura joins me this week to share some vital tips and advice that you can apply to your professional circumstances, whatever they may look like right now.
Join us this week and learn about what it takes to move into a new career and how to become a Business Analyst. We discuss the three most common routes into the profession, and why you can always analyze business processes, even if you’re not in a Business Analyst role.
If you’re resonating with what you’re hearing on the podcast and are ready to learn what’s been holding you back so far, click here to learn how you can work with me and get some help to move forward!
Ready to join thousands of other successful candidates in landing a job you love at the pay you deserve? Leave me an iTunes review and email me with the screenshot of the review, and I’ll send you access to my amazing free guide containing 50 examples of behavioral interview questions that you can use to help you prepare for future interviews and land that job!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- 5 steps to becoming a Business Analyst.
- How every area of our life can be simplified into a process.
- What holds people back from taking the next step in their professional careers.
- Some careers that people may have been in before moving to a Business Analyst role.
- Why indecision holds us back.
- 4 key skills a business analyst needs.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Featured on the Show:
- Ready to start making a serious impact in your industry? Want to be on the podcast? Join me at http://nataliefisher.ca/start/.
- Check out my YouTube Channel!
- Let’s connect! Add me on LinkedIn.
- Laura Brandenburg: Website | Book | Workshop
DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT
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This is the Get a 6-Figure Job You Lovepodcast. This is episode 34 Becoming a Business Analyst.
Hey there. Welcome to the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love job podcast. I’m your host, Natalie Fisher. I’m a certified career mindset coach who also happens to want to skip all the BS and get to what it really takes to create real results for you in your career. On this podcast, you will create real mindset shifts that will lead to big results and big changes in your career and your income. No fluff here. If you want to get a six-figure job you love and create real concrete results in your industry and make a real impact you’re in the right place. Are you ready? Let’s go.
So before we jump into this episode today, I think Laura’s my first guest. I have actually only ever had successful clients on the podcast before and Laura’s my first guest. And I normally don’t do guest interviews on my podcast because I want to zero in on the clients who are killing it and I want to give you the most useful things I can. And unless I can see that a guest really brings something to the table that’s really valuable for you guys, that’s why I decided to bring Laura on. So I love this episode because we talk about things that don’t just apply to business analysis. And I think that there’s a process to everything, so she talks about business process, but your job search is a process and every area of our life can be simplified into a process.
And so I really encourage you to listen to those, even if you’re not interested in becoming a business analyst. And even if maybe you are playing with the idea, but haven’t really had a thought about it before, or either one of those, I really encourage you to listen to it anyway, especially at the end where I ask her some deeper questions on things that apply to a lot of people that are in situations that have nothing to do with business analysis. So I would just take the episode and just be like, “How can this apply to me? How does this apply to me?” And that’s how you’re always going to get the best learning out of any of my episodes and any of the trainings that you listen to. So without further ado, I will pass it on so that you can listen to the interview and I will see you there.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the podcast this week, I have a very special guest with me. Some of you may have heard of her. Her name is Laura Brandenburg and we’re going to talk today all about becoming a business analyst and what that takes. If that’s something that you’ve been considering or been interested in, there’s a lot to it. So I’m going to let Laura go ahead and introduce herself.
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited about your podcast. And like we were talking before we got started, we’ve had all kinds of opportunities to work together, but it’s been a little while so I’m excited for our conversation today. And I guess a bit about me, I run an online training and certification company called Bridging the Gap and we offer training and now a certification in business analysis. So it’s called the Applied Certification in Business Analysis and I’ve been helping people start their business analyst career since 2008. And the first thing I put out to the world was my book called How to Start a Business Analyst Career. And a lot of what I think we’ll be talking about today are things that I also talk about in the book, so lots of resources and lots of time just working with people on how to get into the profession or how to formalize their role once they have that first role or really succeed in their first role as a business analyst.
Yeah, for sure. So I think we kind of go through the journey of what it looks like for someone if they’re starting and what they would do. So my first question for you is where do people start getting that seedling of the idea in their head that maybe they want to become a business analyst and start thinking about taking steps to going in that direction?
Yeah. A lot of the people that I work with, they feel stuck or unsatisfied in their careers in some way. So they’re typically mid-career professionals. They’ve been successful in their careers, but they feel like there’s just not a lot of options within where they’re at. So sometimes as well, they’ve been doing this role for a while and then they just didn’t even realize that it was a real career. And so there’s this sense
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of awareness and then that’s how they find me. Like, “Oh, I guess I should learn how to do what I’ve been doing for a while.” But other times when people are not in the role and really looking to get into the role, it’s more of just feeling a stuckness. There’s not a career path in the role that they’re in and they’ve usually have been doing some sort of business analysis in their role or been told they’re a good communicator, a good problem solver, like this would be a good fit for you. And so they see it as a next step to get unstuck.
Yeah. Awesome. Do you think that there’s anything, when they’re in that state, so they’re like, “Okay, I’m feeling stuck” because I work with a lot of people who are also feeling stuck, but they’re just not really sure what the next step is and sometimes they have hesitations, something holds them back. They might have a fear of taking that next step. What do you as the biggest setbacks for people or the biggest things that hold them back from taking that next step?
Yeah. In our community, a lot of times it’s a lack of support from their management, so that’s kind of the external reason. If they’re in more of an informal role and their management team doesn’t really understand what a business analyst does, they see at like, “This could be the next thing in my career,” but then it’s like they’re creating a new career for themselves and they’re also trying to create a new organizational structure almost to buy into this role and to do things a different way, which is really a big challenge for somebody who’s both new to the role and trying to create the role in their organization. And so that really comes back, that indecision often is like, “Is this the right role for me or I just lacked the confidence to really go and do what it takes to be a business analyst and I’m not getting that external support that’s going to help pull me forward either?”
Totally. Yeah. And I resonate with that too. A lot of my clients have the same… Not even necessarily in the business analyst industry, but they want to move forward and do something that they see a need for and they know that they’ve kind of already been doing it and they want to do it. And so they need the skill of, on top of that, selling themselves into a new role, selling the management and others on the fact that this is a need and then they need to be able to perform in that role as well. So they’ve got the two things that they need to learn how to do and it can be a bit overwhelming at times, but definitely possible as I’m sure we’ve both seen.
Right. Yeah. It’s definitely possible. But it does, I think it keeps people stuck because there’s those three things. I need to learn how to do it, I need to convince other people that it’s a needed role, and then also convinced them that I can do it when I’m a little bit uncertain myself.
Yeah, for sure. And I know that you’ve had lots of people talk about their successes and being able to do that. I’ve had a few clients specifically who have been able to sell themselves into a new role. And I think that it comes down to having that self-confidence of, “I know that this is a possible thing that I can do,” and then they need to get themselves on board with that first and then take the next step.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So when somebody decides that this is a thing they want to do it, they’re feeling stuck now. So where they are right now isn’t good enough for them basically they’re like, “Okay, at some point I’m going to need to make a change.” What is it that you think attracts them most to the growth of stepping into the new profession or the new role? The difference between where they are now and where they’re going to be? What do you think is the biggest thing that attracts them to that new possibility?
Yeah. I think a lot of the people who really get excited about the possibilities of the role itself and the work and enjoyment of the work. So they tend to be problem solvers, people who are always seeing problems, as well as trying to solve the root cause of the problem, they tend to be great communicators. And so they’re pulled in because they’re going to get to use more of those skills and be kind of at a higher level in the organization where instead of feeling like you’re always stuck in the same turn of like,
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“Oh, that problem is always here.” I’m the one that gets to solve that problem and do something about that problem and create technology that solves that problem. And so you start to get recognized at a higher level.
So I think there’s that sense of actually being the person who can create change in the organization, which along with that there comes a certain level of salary. Average salary for business analyst, it varies from year to year for the industry salary surveys, but typically in the $90,000 a year for a mid-level BA and definitely senior business analysts with certifications and high-demand specialties often can be over a six-figure role. So there’s a lot of opportunity to grow within the profession as well. And some people just get attracted by the salary and aren’t actually a great fit for the role, but it’s the best you actually enjoy the work and see the opportunity to grow and expand in that way.
Yeah. For sure. And I think that that happens sometimes a lot, people get attracted by the salary and then they realize, “Oh, I don’t actually really enjoy this.” So what do you think is that moment when someone’s like, they’re doing the work they’re doing now and they’re just like this is… What’s the thought? Is it like, “This isn’t challenging enough for me?” Or “I’m not growing?” What’s like the common themes that you see with people wanting to really make that step?
Yeah. Well, one of them is sometimes that decision is made for them. So one of the participants I worked with, as an example, she was in a technical writing role and had really maxed out for salary potential. So that could be another theme, they’ve reached the salary potential of the role that they’re in. And so what is the next thing to grow? In her case that actually led to a layoff that then she had to like, “Okay, so if I was the top of the game is technical writer and I want to grow my salary because I’ve got years of my career left, what’s the next thing?” And so often business analysis is a way to leverage past experience and skills in a lot of related roles. Technical writing is one, software development is another, quality assurance is another, project coordination, project management into a role that also has a career path and provides that growth opportunity.
Yeah. That’s really good for listing all those careers that they could have previously been in because I think that was my next question was why didn’t the last career work out or what is it… So basically that it’s the maxed out the growth you would say in that one?
Yeah. And I mean often it’s not that that career didn’t work out. Like for me, I went from being an assistant editor to being a QA, to being in business analysis and all of those roles worked out in some way for me. But there was a stopping point. So often they are really successful in their careers, they have done well in the role that they’re in, and they’re really just ready for something more to take it the next step.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. And so what is, and I know this is probably a long answer, but what is the process to becoming a business analyst? So say if you’re in one of those positions and you’re like, ” I think that’s what I really want to do.” Where would you start?
Yeah. So I actually have five steps that I’ll cover. So it is a bit of a long answer. Could we spend some time on this one?
Great. Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. So I do completely cover this in the book, How to Start a BA Career, but I’ll go through the five steps here because I think there is five steps that really makes sense to go through. The first, which we’ve talked about quite a bit but I think is really important to emphasize, is just making that clear decision, that this is the career you want to go for. And so where I also see people get stuck is being in indecision of it. And there’s something that changes when you decide, “Yes, this is the career I’m going for.” And that you realize that it’s the right career path for you and that it’s a meaningful career path and
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that it’s going to suit your strengths and your abilities and what you’re interested in. So I think that that is step one is just making that decision.
And then step two is really learning the fundamentals of business analysis. So we teach four key areas, business process analysis, software requirements, data modeling, and then an eight step process framework that allows you to be successful on a project, so the steps that you need to go through. But you need to learn the fundamentals of what a business analyst does and what those skills are and there’s a variety of both modeling techniques of how we actually model requirements visually, how we write requirements clearly, and how we communicate about requirements because business analysis is a very collaborative, communicative role, and very analytical. So you need to have both of those natural strengths and then learn the skills to support that.
And then step three, which is really, really critical and where we help people the most, is around applying those techniques on the job. And I recommend people do this even if they are not in an official business analyst role, you can always analyze a business process. Like you and I in our businesses have business processes. If you are a subject matter expert in accounting, you have your accounting processes. If you’re in HR, you have your hiring process. You have processes so just start by analyzing a process and ideally making an improvement to that process. And what happens when you start to do that is you gain that comfort level, a little bit of that confidence of, “I can do this” and you also often start to get noticed for on the job opportunities. And often participants in our programs who do this with our support will see a snowball effect of, “Oh, I did one thing and now people want me to do more of that thing.” And it starts to bring more opportunities to do more business analysis to you.
And so then step four is really just focusing on the right role for you. I see a lot of people get stuck because there’s such a big variety of roles within business analysis and a lot of specialties. And so they get really overwhelmed with like, “How can I be an expert in every industry and every tool and every business application and every way of doing business analysis” and no BA is qualified for every BA role. Even a more senior BA might be qualified for 10 to 20% of the opportunities out there. So focusing on those opportunities that are going to leverage your industry experience or the business applications you’re familiar with and allowing that to be okay especially as you get started.
And then step five is figuring out the best path to make that leap forward. So the three most common paths that we see are pursuing an internal promotion, so where there is an actual BA team in your organization and you’re promoted into that role. Creating a new role in your organization, so these are for people who are often doing business analysis or starting to do it, but then there’s not an actual BA practice yet so you’re creating that role and filling that role. And then the third would be finding a new role in a new organization, which is if your organization has no opportunities that’s the path that you need to be on or if you’re currently in between, that’s where you would often start as well, is you just need to find a new role in the organization. So I know that was quite a long answer, but I feel like there’s a lot to it. It’s something I could talk about for ages.
Absolutely. Yeah. And the decision… I just wanted to add to that because I know that that’s something that a lot of my clients when they come to me or potential people who are thinking about making a change, that’s where they get stuck for the longest time is the decision. And then the time that you’re waffling over the decision is the time that you’re not putting all your effort and energy into making that decision happen or not happen depending on what it is. But yeah, the decision is the part that I see that also applies to any career change at all, so that’s a really important one that you touched on
And it’s a valid thing because it’s kind of scary, the sense of you could get it wrong. What if it is wrong? And often what I suggest is at least learn a little bit about it and then go to step three and start applying the techniques and then you’ll figure out really quickly like, “Oh my gosh, this is horrible.” Or, “Oh, wait,
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I’m really loving this.” The people who get into their first business process and they’re so excited, then just helps clarify that decision for you.
Yeah and that’s where the action kind of gives you the information that you need, taking imperfect action without really knowing yet is where you start to gather that information and the puzzle pieces start to go together. So yeah, totally.
And you can always make a new decision.
Yeah, yeah. And then you can always change it if you… So I know that you have the program and you’ve walked many people through this process. What do you think works about your process? Obviously there’s all the support and you’ve been through it and all that, so there’s that, but what do you think is the thing that most helps people through with your process?
Yeah. So the way that we support people in this process is we really focus on the application and that hands-on on the job application because that is where people get stuck. And so we see a lot of people be in more theoretical training programs or maybe prepared for an exam-based certification. And they’re full of all this knowledge, but they haven’t actually applied it. And so we create a structure and accountability and a reason to apply it because, as part of earning your certification with us, you actually need to go out and analyze a business process, not a fictitious one that we create for you, but one that you… It can be through volunteering, it can be in your current organization. So it gets people into that incremental action, like we talked about, but we don’t just force you to do it and not give you support.
So there’s instructor support along the way where you can ask questions, you’re sharing your ideas and seeing what other people in your cohort are doing for their processes and their use cases and so you’re getting exposure to other business analysts’ work and industries and what even happens in other countries. And then you’re getting a review of your work specifically at the end of each module, so you’re getting an instructor review. And that’s really where the confidence comes from because once you’ve had it reviewed by an instructor and you’ve met industry standard requirements, I think it’s way easier for people to go back and be, “Wait, I really do know what I’m doing” and not to have that second guessing loop in the back of their head like, “Well, I think I’m doing it right or I might be doing it right, but I’m not sure.” It really closes that imposter syndrome loop for people when they’ve had that feedback. And we always give people feedback in how they can improve, but just knowing that you’ve met a certain standard I think this gives people a lot of confidence.
Yeah, absolutely. And that applied factor, actually applying it like you’re actually on the job, that’s the thing that can be missing from college and university classroom courses where you’re not really going out there and applying the work. So I think what really sets it apart for sure. So what would you say the experience of new business analysts usually have when they’re going through this program or this process, what would you say their experience looks like?
At first, often, there can be a lot of resistance to be honest, like, “What? I have to do it?” We see people pick 10 processes or feel like they have no processes. There’s a lot of resistance like, “Oh, this isn’t going to work for me because…” right? And I know you probably hear that in your… like, “Oh yeah, I know that’s worked for everybody else, but it’s not going to work for me.” So we do see that at the beginning for sure. And then once they take that action and once they start to actually apply it often, there’s a light bulb that goes on and they see how it works, they see that they can do it. And what’s really awesome is when they start to get a bit of positive stakeholder feedback.
So we often hear people say, “Oh my stakeholder’s never seen it done this way before,” which can be scary because it feels like you’re bringing something new, but they probably liked it. Or I got, “I had this stakeholder and I’ve always had trouble working with, and then we had a much better meeting than we normally do,” or, “We got through a difficult situation.” And so just that they start to get that feedback
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on their work that shows that they’re adding more value and in the best scenarios, it starts to trickle throughout the organization. And that’s where you start to see people come to you like, “Oh, can you do that for my project?” And then that’s the… I call it he virtuous cycle of one experience leading to another, which often will kickstart people into a more formal BA role if they weren’t in one already.
Totally. Yeah. And the common theme that I’m thinking of is there’s always a little bit of discomfort in the beginning, whether that’s making the decision or doing something that’s different or scary and that it pays off in the end, especially when you have a guided process that’s like showing you this has proven in the past and this works and stuff. It’s always the same with my clients too. There’s always a resistance, a little bit of like discomfort because it’s new and that’s normal, totally valid. Yeah. Awesome. And so in the end, what do you think the major skills or characteristics that someone would really succeed starts with in this industry?
Yeah. Yeah. So we teach four key skill areas. And the way that we talk about them is both from an analysis perspective, so analysis and communication. So analysis being like, how do you sit down and think about requirements and how do you work through the problem and solve the problem and get really detailed and specific? And then communication is like how are you facilitating discussions with stakeholders and asking questions and running meetings and email communication? So business analysis is both parts and I think that’s a really important thing to be aware of too. Both in terms of is this a good fit for me in the role? And also when you’re looking at programs like am I going to be supported in both analysis and communication?
But then we break those down into business process analysis, so that’s just how does workflow in your organization? And then improving a process, you’re actually making a change, doesn’t have to be a technology change, but often just by sitting down and mapping out your workflow diagram and figuring out who does what and what order it happens in, you just improve it because once you understand it, it’s better than when you didn’t understand it in the past. And then we teach software requirements, so the techniques are use cases and wire frames. And it’s really a thinking skill of like, “How do I get clear about exactly what the software needs to do to support that end user?” And what that does is it gets both business users and technology users on the same page about requirements and allows you to really be the bridge between them or bridge the communication between them. We don’t really want to be the bridge in the sense of having to be in the middle, but actually facilitating that communication.
And then another core skill area is data modeling. That’s really how your organization stores information, how information is passed back and forth between systems, and what key terminology is used. And then our forth skill area is the business analysis process framework. So what you do when you’re given a new project, how do you ensure you’re solving the right problem? How do you break that down and collaborate with stakeholders and ensure the whole process really achieves a positive return on investment? So, that’s the four things I think… These are the foundational skillsets to be successful as a BA. And then what we see in the industry is there’s specializations and things that will get layered on top of that. Maybe you need to know your industry or you need to know a certain business application, but these are the skills that you can take with you to multiple different roles and will follow you in your entire career.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the main thing there was zeroing in on the results that you want to achieve, zeroing in on what the needs are, and then working towards that with the specific skill sets that you mentioned. Yeah. Awesome. And so at the end of the day, the ultimate result that a successful BA would have after making the decision, going through the process, learning the things they need to learn, what is the best case scenario after that for them? Where would they go on from there and how will they interact in that role differently than how they were before?
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Yeah. What are the things that I see, which I love, is people who become successful in their work as a business analyst, the thing that they want next is to be a champion in the role. And that can look a lot of different ways, but for some people it’s leading a small team of business analysts, for others it’s a management role, for others it’s more of an informal mentoring, but it’s this… And it’s one of the things I really love about the profession because it is a very generous and caring profession of people. And that’s what I see. Once they figured this out for themselves, very often their desire is to go back and help others and help others succeed or put processes in place that help improve it for the organization. And so it’s really the confidence to not just do your piece and be successful on a project, but really set your organization and help others be successful as well.
Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s kind of what I see… So I have a question that I ask my clients and I like to get them thinking about is what is the maximum impact that they could have in their chosen career or where they want to go? And it’ll often be mentoring others or helping others or adding that value after they’ve really mastered what they want to do is then going to be passing that on to others. And so to piggyback on that question for position title, what is the farthest you think that someone could go as far as title or in the organization, as far as salary, what’s kind of the maximum impact that you’ve seen as far as BAs go?
Yeah. I mean I think it’s a great foundational skillset for a CIO, or chief information officer, director of operations. So depending on where you want to go in your career, if you want to go up through management, you can be thinking of operations roles, CIO type roles, CTO roles. If you want to be more of an individual contributor, we see people do management consulting. So kind of once you get beyond just the project, it’s more of like what’s the organizational strategy? And how do all the projects that we’re working on fit together to get our organization where we want to go?
And that’s part of the work that I did before I started my own company was more of strategy analysis as well as leading a team where people who are implementing that. But my BA work was not on a project. It was on what are all the pieces and parts of these different projects and how do they fit together to get us where we want to go? So, that’s another opportunity. Business architecture supports more of the strategy analysis and that’s a big growth opportunity. So it’s kind of depends. You see people more on that individual contributor get into more of a consulting path.
Okay. Yeah. Those are two great paths, great options because not everyone wants to go to C-suite level and you can still love what you’re doing and still want to expand and grow in a different way, so those are two great examples. And then to circle back to something that we talked about earlier that I think would be valuable to zero in on a little bit more was when someone’s in that position of having to sell that new position to management, do you have some thoughts, some examples, on how you’ve seen people do that successfully if it’s not a clear path?
Yeah. I always encourage people to look at the problem that your management actually cares about today. It’s often something like, “Oh, it seems like we’re always releasing these new software features and the business is unhappy with us.” And And so you could start by saying, “We need to do all these business analysis things because this is what I learned in a training course.” And I often see that then I just meet with resistance because if people aren’t embracing process in the first place, then they’re like, “Oh, this is way too much process and I don’t want that.” But you kind of find the problem that the management does care about and then you present the solution to that problem.
So in that case, if you’re constantly releasing things that isn’t what the business stakeholders want, it’s a requirements problem. It’s because we’re not understanding their requirements, but you can position it in a way like, “Well, let me do this piece, like put a use case together or bring a different validation technique into play, make sure we’re getting buy in from them before it gets built.” And then you can start to solve that problem and use that as an entry point to put a bigger process framework in place,
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but you just want to start with what problems do people actually care about? And follow those and then build up from there.
Yeah. So sell the result, not the process because they don’t care about the process, they care about the end result.
Myself and BAs in general I think can get really excited about their processes and I can spend this whole time talking about eight steps that I try to give it briefly, but we can get really excited about that, but it really is the result at the end of the day that matters. Yeah. That’s a great point.
Absolutely. Awesome. Yeah. And so then one more question that I thought would be helpful to get your thoughts on. If it’s not working, if they don’t seem to be getting through perhaps the organization isn’t… They’re either not understanding or they’re just resistant to change. What kind of thoughts do you have for the individual who wants to leave or wants to grow and they’re just not having success there? How do you know that they’ve done all they can to present the solution? Because I feel like what you said, it’s the same as what I teach. It’s like if you are presenting that solution, there comes a point where you’re like, “Okay, it’s not going to be in this organization, then it’s going to be in another.”
Yeah. It’s interesting. I have somebody that I was just recently worked with. She joined our programs a couple of years ago and was very much in that mode of her company was very resistant to any sort of process, yet they had business analysts, but they didn’t really want them to do much formal work. And then she did go through our eight step process course. I think she was just continually over the last couple of years demonstrating that she could add value and she could understand the business problem and really get to the root of what was going on and so she’s been chipping away at it slowly. And then the framework helped her bring more credibility to her role too. So there was a point at chipping away at it and demonstrating credibility and then, “Now here is something. This is how we should be doing things” and bring that with some credibility with a, “Let’s just experiment with it for one project and see how it goes.”
And so I feel like she’s been able to break down resistance from those incremental steps, but that’s really up to the individual of how much patience do you have. But then on the flip side, I often see people leave situations that seem like challenging situations and then those same situations find them in the next place. Because it’s like there’s something in you that needs to grow to be accepting and help overcome that situation.
Totally. Super well said, yeah.
Yeah. I don’t have a great like, “Oh you can know at this point,” because I think there’s a lot of introspection that needs to happen too like to what degree is your thought process and your limiting patterns about your role bringing forward that too?
Yeah. And so then there’s the skill of you can do it and you know you’re capable and you can add the value and then there’s the skill of how you’re going to communicate it and how many different ways and how many things that… Yeah. And then your belief in your ability. So there’s like the soft skills and the hard skills, which both have to be worked on in order to move forward.
Yeah. And I watch your content so I know you go a bit woo-woo at times too, but I also think if you’re holding onto resentment, there’s a forgiveness too, because if you are working in resentment and your attitude or your thought process is like, “Oh, I’m going to do all this awesome stuff and it’s never going to take off” or, “This organization is backwards or behind the times” you’re just going to keep recreating that. And so I think you’ve got to create an environment where you can go in with a fresh perspective too.
Yeah. That’s totally, my jam is getting to the bottom of where that is within the individual and then helping them to approach it in a different way or to make that decision from a clean place. I like to call it
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a clean place where you’re pretty happy with how you’re feeling about it and the decision is the right decision to either seek elsewhere opportunities or continue. But yeah, I’ve seen it happen. People staying in the organization and trying different things and getting to that next level and then also leaving. So yeah, the decision is totally within the nuances of the individual’s mind and what’s going on in there for sure.
Yeah. I think the time that you should definitely leave is if it’s not just backwards but toxic, if you ever feel like you’re being asked to do something that’s wrong or the organizational culture is toxic. That I think is hard to keep your boundaries around and maintain your positive attitude and get into a positive attitude in that case. So finding an organization that might be equally as informal, but not toxic, would be a step forward and then you can to start to get yourself to a clean place. I love that phrase. And regroup and move forward from there.
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Absolutely. Awesome. Well, those were all of my questions. Did you have anything final that you wanted to add?
No. Just if people do want to… Is okay if I share how they might find more?
Yeah. Absolutely. We’ll put all the links up in the show notes for people as well.
Awesome. So my website’s bridging-the-gap.com. There are hyphens in that. And then when you’re there at bridging-the-gap.com/quick, we have quick start to success workshop, which walks you through the business analyst success path, the eight step process framework, and just how this works. And some of the stories and examples that we’ve seen work for people as well. So go check that out if you’re interested in business analysis and if you’re not, I hope you find a career that works for you. And I know Natalie, you help people with that a lot too.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Great. Yeah. Thank you so much for all the great information. I love the breaking down of the process, especially for people who are going to be attracted to this work. Love to hear exactly how it’s going to go, which is kind of why I phrased my questions the way that I did. So thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge and wisdom so generously today. And yeah, I think it’s going to be really useful to a lot of people. So if you want to find Laura, I’ll link it up in the show notes and you can go and check out what she’s doing over there. All right. Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me, Natalie.
You’re welcome. Bye.
If you’re resonating with what you’re hearing on the podcast, I want to tell you something. If we ever talk or work together or interact in any way, I will not, even for a minute, buy into the story that you can’t get the job you want at the pay you want and deserve. I will not buy into the story that the recruiter said you needed to have more experience, or that you were told that you needed to get another degree or certification before you could be considered, or that there are so many other great candidates out there that are more qualified who have already applied, or that you need to check with your accountant first or whatever the excuse you have that robs you from your power. I will not buy it because what I know for sure is that if you’re not being valued and if you’re not being paid at the level you know you can and deserve to be there is a clear reason why and it is a reason that is completely within your control.
If you want to learn, what’s really been holding you back so far and you’re ready to get some help head on over to www.nataliefisher.ca/apply. I will be able to help you identify why you’ve been stuck so far and exactly what you need to do to move forward. And I will help you do this by showing you how to take control of your career, how to set the frame for what you want, instead of thinking that you have to be at the mercy of what you have. And as we all know, if you don’t believe that the job you want is available and that you can have it, you will always settle for the jobs you don’t want. If you are ready to
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